Monday, December 28, 2009

In July a man described as ‘skinny’, dressed in head-to-toe black clothing and wearing sunglasses entered a convenience store and gas station along 15th Avenue Northeast in Ballard. He wasn’t there for an energy drink, but to rob the store, and before he left he would shoot and kill a twenty-eight year old man working at the store.

The store employee had been in the stock room at the back of the small store, and when he heard the door open he came out to attend the counter and register. The suspect crouched down and drew a handgun. When the clerk saw the suspect he attempted to detain him by grabbing his coat. The suspect fired twice, hitting the store clerk with both shots, wounds which would prove to be fatal. The store employee hung on and pressed the attacker onto a counter, but the shooter was able to break free. He ran from the store and down a side street. An alert person at the gas pump called 911, summoning police and an ambulance. The following video is from the store’s surveillance camera. Be warned that while the video feed does not show the shooting, it shows the moment just prior to it.

When police arrived, they found the victim in grave condition with gunshot wounds to the thigh and torso. Despite paramedics efforts he died en route to the hospital.

Police received another call the next day from a concerned resident who had found bloody clothes which had been discarded a block north of the murder scene. When police came to collect the evidence, an officer noticed a teenaged boy observing the police activity. The officer approached the young man and spoke with him for a few minutes. The boy said he’d heard gunshots the previous evening. The officer took the boy’s name, address and phone contact information and sent him on his way. A day later SWAT team members surrounded a home two blocks east of the location where the bloodied clothes had been discarded. The suspect, seventeen year old Elijah Hall, was taken into custody the next day when the crime lab matched his prints to some prints found in the store (and I would speculate that since the kid lived in the area near the store and could argue that his prints were present from shopping at the store, it is likely that his prints were pressed in the victim’s blood on the glass counter.

Sunshine on Discovery Bay

About the Author

I have been lucky enough in my career to have done almost anything that is done in a business. I've been with startups, Fortune 500 companies, mid-sized and small regional companies. My experience includes academic research, manufacturing management, production control, business unit management, as well as consulting for comapnies in a variety of business sectors to solve problems or improve performance. I live in a wonderful neighborhood in a great city. I've got two beautiful children, of which I am button-popping proud. Whomever said that being a father is like having your heart walking around outside your body got it right.